


Hindsight

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Dead Like Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-20
Updated: 2003-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hindsight is such a bitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hindsight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ethrosdemon

 

 

Death - like life - is all about choices. Tiny moments of decision that further your progress inch by inch down your own personal path. Most of the time you don't even realize you're doing this choosing - right or left, red shirt or black shirt - and you definitely don't know what all your little decisions are going to add up to. 

Sometimes you find yourself with a new job, a new home, a new friend. And sometimes you find yourself handcuffed, riding in the back of a police car. 

"Aw come on, Georgie girl," Mason whispered. "It's not like I was looking to get us pinched." 

George stared resolutely at the windshield wipers, her scowl growing deeper with every swishing pass. Her hair stuck to her face in limp wet strands, and the back seat smelled like sweat and puke and a couple of other things her brain was determined not to try and identify. This was not the way she was hoping to spend her Friday night. Or any other night. 

Ever. 

"Nobody said you had to come along," he said, managing to hit a fairly impressive balance between pleading and sulking. George glared the Back Forth Back Forth of the thin wiper strips and continued not to look at him. 

He was right, though - it hadn't been her Post It. There really had been no good reason for her to be there. She knew it, and now she was hating herself for not remembering a basic rule. That rule being that wherever Mason went, illegality was sure to follow. 

Hindsight was such a bitch. 

But her assignment that day had been at an ungodly early hour (and there'd better be some kind of request form she could fill out to keep _that_ from happening again), and George found herself hopelessly bored by mid-afternoon. Tired of the house and with no money to actually go do anything that sounded even remotely interesting, she'd ended up at Der Wafflehouse. The unofficial headquarters of the overweight, the undead, and those with no place else to go. She'd come across Mason slumped in a booth, wasting time before a club across town opened... and, well, the rest - as they say - was history. 

Definitely of the It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time variety. 

The rain was falling faster than the wipers could deal with, and the left one was looking a little bent. One of the cops in the front seat turned his head just enough to watch them out of the corner of his eye; George quickly shifted her eyes from the front window to the one beside her head. 

It's this great new club, he'd said. 

Of course I can get you in, he'd said. 

I know the bloke at the door, he'd said. 

In retrospect, maybe she should've asked _how_ he knew the bloke at the door. Hindsight in steel-toed boots. 

She'd just been so desperate for something to _do_ , something that didn't entail basic cable movies or watching Daisy giving herself the always-enthralling Daily Manicure. Was it so wrong to want to mingle with the living every once in a while? To have a drink, listen to a little music... maybe even make a bit of safe and noncommittal eye contact with a cute stranger sitting way over on the other side of the bar? 

Apparently it was. And now she was being punished for it. 

She heard Mason shifting across the leather bench seat; he managed to get close enough to nudge her arm with an elbow. "Georgie, don't be pissed off... What was I supposed to do? You saw the address - I had an appointment." 

The handcuffs were cold and heavy on her wrists, and her shoulders were starting to ache. She thought she had a pretty decent reason to be pissed off, really. She refused to give him the satisfaction of actually turning to look at him, but by focusing her eyes on the black headrest in front of her she could again see him in her peripheral vision. 

"You didn't have to pick up an undercover cop," she hissed, trying not to move her lips. Wasn't that what you were supposed to do in these situations? All cloak and dagger and talking out of the side of your mouth? Like she knew. Other than TV, the only experience George had with "these situations" was that time she stole a candy bar from the grocery store when she was eight. Her mother had made her take it back and apologize, but it hadn't exactly been an arresting offense. 

Leave it to Mason to give her the experience first hand. 

"But I didn't know she was a cop," he protested. "Besides, she was flirting with me." 

"Because she was undercover as a _prostitute_." 

Mason shrugged. She could hear the faint clanking of metal against metal between his back and the ripped leather. "Okay, so maybe I fucked up a bit," he mumbled, laying his head back against the seat. "You could've gotten yourself out of there, you know." 

"No, actually, I couldn't. That's sort of the point." 

Not that she hadn't tried. One minute she was nursing a watered-down Screwdriver and watching Mason head off through an unmarked door to a back room somewhere with a bimbo in a mini skirt; the next she was going outside for some air and getting grabbed and cuffed by the cops waiting just outside. Thrown over to sit on the curb in the rain with a bunch of kids who all looked to be about her age, and none of them sober enough to be able to really tell her what was going on. She figured out soon enough that it was some kind of drug bust - Mason got full credit for accidentally discovering the prostitution angle - but she couldn't get anyone in authority to talk to her. Other than to tell her that someone had fingered her as part of the using crowd. 

Fucking people. You tried to spend time with them, and look where it got you. 

"Doesn't matter, does it? When you get your phone call, you can have Rube come get you out. After all, you didn't do anything wrong." He rolled his head across the seat back to look at her, a sly smile spreading across his face. "You didn't, did you?" 

"No!" she snapped. It was a lot louder than she'd meant it to be, and the cop in the passenger seat turned around to look at them again. 

"All right, that's enough back there," he said. George figured he meant it. He didn't much look like the joking type. 

God, this was like some kind of bad movie - complete with cliche dialogue. She tried to think back to every police scene she'd ever watched, but all she was coming up with was a blurry montage of grey walls and steel bars and shiny badges that came without smiles. Were they going to fingerprint her? And if they did, would they be Millie's fingerprints or Georgia Lass's? 

_Sorry for the confusion, Officer. See, I used to be somebody else. Back when I was alive._

And Rube? She really didn't want to have to call Rube. 

She could already picture the look on his face. The You're a Constant Source of Disappointment to Me Peanut look. She was so sick of that look - as if he'd never made a mistake in his entire life. 

Death. Whatever. 

Assuming he even decided to show up right away. She wouldn't be surprised if he left her in prison to rot, just to teach her a lesson. Except then he'd be down two Reapers, and people might start missing out on the fun of their violent and unexpected deaths. Gravelings would be vindictive. Natural balance thrown out of whack. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 

No, Rube would come bail them out. But they were going to have to suffer for it. 

It was a good thing she was already dead, because he was going to kill her. 

 


End file.
